The former soldier desperately struggled to untie the cord around Courtney’s neck. He couldn’t and ran upstairs to get a knife.

He got her to the floor and his military training kicked in. He started doing CPR for what seemed like an eternity before the paramedics arrived.

But “Daddy’s girl” was gone.

“I tried, but I couldn’t do anything for her,” he cried, the anguish etched on his face.

Reliving the horror of that night, the grieving father got up from the living room couch to compose himself. With his head in his hands and body hunched over the kitchen counter, his wife stroked his back to soothe his sorrow.

Through the tears, he asks the question that continues to haunt them:

“Why?”

Courtney was the kind of kid who made friends easily, keeping in contact with the ones she left behind with each military move. Her network of friends stretched across Canada and all the way to Costa Rica, where her grandmother lived.

A tomboy at heart, she loved horseback riding and camping, and eschewed tight jeans, dresses and makeup in favour of her Leafs jersey.

Friends said she had a great sense of humour and was cheerful and outgoing. Her smile lit up every picture she was in.

“We went off-roading a lot ... She was definitely the one in the back going ‘Woohoo!’” recalled Courtney Smith, a friend from Parrsboro.

While living in Calgary, her family said their daughter’s heart was always in Parrsboro.

“She liked the small town,” her father said. “‘I’m going home,’ she said when we were coming here. And whenever we’d drive from New Brunswick into Nova Scotia, she’d go, ‘Smell that fresh air. We’re home.’”

While on summer vacation last year in the quiet Cumberland County town, she found Jordan, the love of her life.

“She showed me a picture of him and said, ‘Mom, this is the boy I’m going to marry,’” said Sharon.

“I knew what she was going through because when I first saw Tom when I was 15, I had said the same thing.”

But Courtney’s happiness was short-lived. On Aug. 5, 2010, Jordan, 18, died in a tragic car accident after partying with friends.

The Browns brought their grieving daughter back to Parrsboro for the funeral, setting in motion a series of further sorrows.

“We could hear her in the house talking about how much she wanted to come back here and be near him, and to heal,” said Sharon.

“I said to Tom ... ‘We have to do this for our daughter. She wants to be here. I will give up my job and move here for her.’

“And sometimes I wish I never would’ve made that decision.”

While her parents tied up loose ends in Alberta, Courtney moved down in time to begin Grade 12 at Parrsboro Regional High School. Courtney, who was staying with friends, told her parents that she liked the school.

Things seemed to be working out.

The Browns were on the road to Nova Scotia in October 2010 when Courtney texted to say a woman threatened her on school grounds. Her parents say it had something to do with Jordan, and Courtney had handled it before they arrived.

RCMP charged a local woman with uttering threats. The case was set for trial in July but was dropped after Courtney’s death.

The Browns thought nothing more of it until later that month, when Sharon was called to the school after Courtney walked out.

“The vice-principal said she was being defiant,” Sharon said. “She was crying. And you would think with the small-town school, they knew what was going on, that they would have some understanding of what she was going through. They knew, but no.”

Courtney and her mom talked to the principal, and when Sharon briefly left the office, her daughter made a frightening revelation.

“She told the principal that she wanted to die and be with Jordan,” Sharon said.

The principal took Sharon aside, told her what Courtney said and Sharon immediately got her daughter in to see a mental health counsellor.

The Browns thought they only needed to help Courtney deal with her unresolved grief but soon discovered that her problems ran much deeper.

Courtney’s former friends were bullying her.

“I think it started with the death of her boyfriend and Courtney moving back here,” Tom said.

“They were jealous. How could her boyfriend have liked Courtney more, knowing her less? ... That’s how petty some of these kids are in this town.”

At school and around town, kids verbally abused her, resorting to prank calls, text messages and even Facebook to spew their venom. They told her to go back to Calgary, called her a slut and a whore and said she looked like a man, her parents said.

“People don’t realize how much Jordan really meant to her and what she was going through,” Sharon said. “And those mean words just pushed her over the edge.”

Courtney started making excuses to avoid school, frequently complaining of stomach trouble. She wouldn’t go on the school bus anymore, wouldn’t go into town by herself and didn’t want to stay home alone.

Last year, right after Halloween, bullies threw pumpkins at the Browns’ house and in the yard.

“One little treat that they left afterwards, one of them defecated in a pumpkin and stuck it right behind my pickup,” Tom said.

In January, fire destroyed the Browns’ home and the family moved into a relative’s house next door until their new home was completed. Insurance covered the loss, but prank callers told Courtney that someone had burned the house down to chase her out of town.

Despite everything, Courtney tried to move on, and even found another boyfriend. He later broke up with her and joined the bullies, her parents said.

As the months wore on, Courtney skipped more school, dropped a class to avoid the bullies and smoked more marijuana, her parents said.

Sharon and her daughter went for long drives to talk about Courtney’s problems and her future. They discussed things like country music, clothes, boys, graduation and school.

“I’m pretty sure she didn’t tell me everything, but she told me some of the stuff that was being said, and I told her to walk away and they would go away,” Sharon said.

Visits to the school to talk about the bullying continued, but her parents said administrators did nothing.

Still in counselling, Courtney clung to the hope that after graduation she would get out of Parrsboro and attend Nova Scotia Community College to study photography.

She was excited about her upcoming prom and the prospect of breaking free from her tormentors. Her dad said she was even planning to buy a dress in her favourite colour, green, for the soiree.

But things seemed to spiral when she found out that two of the bullies were planning to attend the same Dartmouth campus, the Browns said.

Courtney ditched her college plans and decided to join the military. The former rugby player told her father she couldn’t retaliate against the girls because she would have a criminal record and that would hurt her chances at a military career.

Just days before Courtney’s death, Sharon bitterly recalled her last conversation with the principal, who “told me that if she didn’t see (the bullying) and didn’t hear it, she couldn’t do anything about it.”

After that, the family thought seriously about moving back to Calgary.

The night before she killed herself, Courtney and her mom repeatedly drove past Jordan’s grave.

“She ... told me she was never going to meet another guy like him,” Sharon said. “And I said, ‘Courtney, there’ll always be someone else when you least expect it.’ ... I wish I would’ve known. Maybe it was a sign.”

On March 30, Courtney walked out of a test and a friend drove her home from school at lunchtime. Courtney told the friend “See you tomorrow” like nothing was wrong, her parents said.

Courtney later asked if she could have another friend over, but Sharon, who had been sick all day, refused and they had an argument.

Later that evening, Sharon and Tom decided to go out for supper and asked if Courtney would like to come or have them bring something home.

“And then she started an argument, like, ‘Well, why didn’t you just ask me if I wanted to come for dinner instead of you saying did you want to bring something back for me?’” Tom said. “Like, as if we didn’t want her to be with us for that. You know, some of her thinking just wasn’t straight.

“And we went, ‘No, you can come with us or not.’ And she made a big fuss, so we ended up going to the restaurant by ourselves.”

Not long after the Browns arrived at the restaurant, they received Courtney’s message. Much of what happened after they found her is a blur.

Sharon remembers being on the phone trying to contact family and close friends before the news hit Facebook.

They found a photo on Courtney’s dresser of her sitting at Jordan’s gravesite and text messages she received that night from her ex-boyfriend saying she was “not worth it,” her mom said.

The Browns say their daughter’s suicide has left them wondering what else they could have done.

What if they had called police? What if they had pushed the school harder? What if she had left a note so they could understand why? What if they had told her to fight instead of turn the other cheek?

They rarely sleep now, and their search for answers often leads to tears.

Sharon has a hard time doing the laundry because she has to walk past where Courtney was found. Tom, always his daughter’s protector, blames himself for not being able to save her.

He tries to keep busy, focusing on constructing their new home and small projects like horseshoe and fire pits near the large “party shack” picnic area he built this summer.

Courtney’s parents pick out her photographs to hang on the walls of the upstairs landing, where they will put a cedar chest with her keepsakes. From the window above, the Browns can see the graveyard where their daughter is buried.

They visit Courtney’s grave, beside Jordan’s, all the time and Sharon reads her messages from friends posted on Facebook.

“I wish she would’ve known how many friends she did have,” said Sharon. “But all she could focus on was the bad ones.”

Some of Courtney’s friends sent Sharon cards on Mother’s Day, and some, like Courtney’s childhood friend from Ontario, come to visit.

When Sharon sees kids Courtney knew, it brings waves of anger, frustration and sadness. More often than not, she thinks about packing up and leaving town.

The days now go by slowly, and the parents admit they are drifting through life instead of living.

“Every day, you feel like you can’t even go on, nothing to look forward to,” Tom Brown said, crying. “Every day is just another day.”

Sharon is in counselling, but Tom, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in the military, is not ready to go.

The RCMP seized Courtney’s computer and her cellphone, each of which included messages from bullies, but no charges were laid.

And no one, not even representatives from the school or the board, has apologized for what happened to Courtney.

Carolyn Pierce, spokeswoman for the Chignecto-Central regional school board, would not agree to an interview. In an email, she wrote:

“It would not be appropriate, nor is it our practice, to discuss confidential or personal matters, or specific situations regarding our students or staff, especially considering the email sent by the N.S. chief public health officer to all media earlier this spring.”

Dr. Robert Strang’s email warns the media to adhere to “safe reporting guidelines” when dealing with teen suicides.

“There is considerable research that demonstrates the reporting of suicide can cause copycat cases, particularly among youth and younger adults. Additionally, there is evidence that, when followed, these guidelines reduce the risk of similar suicides and the rate of suicide in general.”

Courtney’s parents see it as an attempt to gloss over what happened to their daughter. But the Browns are adamant; they say bullies drove her to take her own life and got away with it.

They say they are not going to let people in Parrsboro or anywhere else forget what happened.

Pink anti-bullying signs with Courtney’s smiling face line the sides of Tom’s pickup. The Browns had T-shirts made for friends and family to wear, and their son, Chad, participated in the Kids Help Phone fundraising walk in Calgary, something the parents hope to do next year.

Aside from a page in the school yearbook dedicated to Courtney and Facebook pages in her memory, there are few signs of her loss and fewer signs of change in the small town, the Browns say.

They say teachers, school administrators, police and governments need to step up and help those who are being hurt so victims know that they are not powerless and alone.

They encouraged victims to stand up to the bullies and begged parents to get police involved when bullying occurs.

“I thought that something was getting done in school, but I guess I was wrong,” Sharon said. “They just pushed it under the rug as soon as I left.”

Through it all, the Browns have found some solace from family and friends, and, in particular, knowing that Courtney’s death has helped others.

Two people can now see after receiving her corneas, and sclera and bone grafts were expected to help at least 10 more people.